Book one of The Chattanooga Supernaturals, paranormal romance with claws...

Aaron Drake is nine thousand years old and one of the last remaining European were-dragons. With no female Dragons, his only hope of children lies in his grandmother's dying words. "The Swan Princesses may be the Dragons' only hope."

Sophia Siyanko is the first Swan Princess without at least one brother to take the throne in Aaron's long memory. However, her father chooses her husband when she’s twelve, and sets the date for her twenty-fifth birthday. She is sequestered in her father's mansion, raised by governesses and tutors to be the future King’s arm candy, and Aaron’s options are limited.

But then Sophia escapes her father’s compound a few weeks before her twenty-fifth birthday. Determined to escape or die trying, she comes to Aaron for help.

To protect her, he’ll have to fight every Swan and Eagle on the planet, most of the Wolves, and all of Faerie.

Also part of Kirsten O’Shea’s world, Book 2

Excerpt:

“Do you think it
has anything to do with true-love’s kiss?”

He shook his
head. “No.”

I took a breath
and asked before I could chicken out. “Could you kiss me anyway, just in case?”

Aaron’s gaze
felt as if it penetrated my soul. “Do you know what you’re asking, Soph? I was
prepared to give you a few days to get used to me touching your hand, your
back, your face, before I tried to venture farther. You froze last night when I
touched your back. I assume I’m going to be your first romantic kiss?”

I nodded, unable
to talk, and he said, “You stole my heart at three, but I think I fell the rest
of the way in love with you when I threw you in the river. It wasn’t a romantic
love then, but it will be, now.” He shook his head and said, “It is, now.”

“I was seven!” I
finally found my voice, and it came out in almost a shout.

“I know.” His
smile was gentle, as if he was afraid of spooking me. “If I kiss you, it won’t
be to test out your theory.” His eyes were intense. Dark. “We need to get to
know one another better as adults, and have a lot of discussions about
consequences and repercussions before we…” He stood, stepped to me, and pulled
me from my chair, drawing me into the warmth of his arms. No one had ever held
me like this, enveloping me, surrounding me, and I had to think about breathing
as his heat and power surrounded me and threatened to overwhelm me. Holding
onto my reactions was hopeless now, but this was Aaron and he’d never expected
me to be someone I’m not.

I leaned my head
against the hard wall of his chest as I tried to get my heart to slow down.
“Don’t call me Princess.”

“Deal with it.”
No apologies. His voice was a rough scrape over my skin, but I understood. He
wanted me to consider the ramifications of kissing him — and doing more than
kissing — as not only Sophia, but also the Princess who might want to try to
hold the reins as Queen, one day.

I needed to know
more about him, about us, before I could decide. “You made this house, in this
cave, to hide me.”

He stilled,
frozen in time for a brief second, and then caressed my back. “To hide
supernaturals, Soph. Every way into the cave has a body of water you must
cross, and the air is sucked into the earth in this cave system and rarely
blows out. The crystal formations in the area help camouflage both of our
magical signatures, and with no ley lines close, not even the Fae have a hope
of finding us.”

“Not many
supernaturals have occasion to need to hide from the Fae.”

He chuckled and
kissed the top of my head. I liked this, being so close to him, feeling the
vibrations of his chest as I heard him laugh. His lips on top of my head, if
only for a brief second, set my insides on fire.

“More of us need
to hide from the Fae than you might think,” he said. “In my business, when
someone comes to me needing protection it’s always good to have options.” His
sigh told me he’d given up on me deciding whether I wanted a kiss, but when he
tried to pull away, I held on. He relaxed and snuggled me back into him. “I’d
given up on any hope of the swans providing an answer, and then had to feel
guilty when your mother died and the news came that there was one viable egg,
and the Fae announced you were a girl. I felt grief for your father, and
heartache for the child who would be born without a mother to raise her, but at
the same time I felt a spark of hope. And then I got to know you, came to adore
you, and later came to love you. Part of me wants to spirit you away to an
island that shows up on no maps, and is out of bounds so the Fae can’t get to
it from the Summerlands. I would make you fall in love with me, and try to
figure out how to make it work…but I care too much about you. You’ve been
locked away all your life, and if it kills me, or kills both of us, I’m going
to do everything in my power to give you your freedom.”

I gave in to the
sensory input snowballing in my brain. For the first time I my life I didn’t
have to worry about revealing my body’s reactions, so I looked up, caught his
gaze, and said, “Kiss me, Aaron. I don’t want to wait.”

His face came
towards mine, slow, as if he were giving me a chance to change my mind. He ran
his lips across mine, fast, hot. He paused, pulled back a few millimeters, and
then touched his mouth to mine again, so languorous, delicate, and sensually
slow my lips opened to him without my realizing it. I closed my eyes, relaxed
into his arms, and let him have my mouth, let him do whatever he wanted with
it.

His tongue
encouraged mine to move, to do a kind of dance with his, and once I relaxed
into the kiss, my lower body came to life in a way I’d never experienced and I
pressed my thighs together, alarmed he’d smell what he was doing to me.

The kiss grew
from a slow, relaxed caress to an urgent, demanding, hungry claim. I felt as if
he branded me, owned me, and if he hadn’t ended it I’m not sure I’d have been
able to. I was breathless and speechless as I opened my eyes to see him
watching me, and all I could do was smile, close my eyes, and rest my face
against his chest. The quick fantasies I’d allowed myself while swimming laps
in the pool, or while showering — places no one was likely to smell the scent
of arousal — were nothing compared to the larger-than-life reality of Aaron
Drake in person.

“If that wasn’t
true love’s kiss then the real thing might be enough to give someone a heart
attack,” I said into his chest. “I had no idea, Aaron. Is it always like that?”

He kissed the
top of my head and his voice rumbled on my cheek through his chest. “No, that
was an exceptionally good kiss. We have chemistry, Soph. I knew we would, but
it’s nice to have reality live up to what I’d hoped for.”

About the Author:

Candace Blevins is a southern girl who loves to travel the world. She lives with her husband of 17 years and their two daughters. When not working or driving kids all over the place she can be found reading, writing, meditating, or swimming.

Candace writes BDSM Romance, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and is currently writing a Motorcycle Club series.

Her Safeword Series gives us characters who happen to have some extreme kinks. Relationships can be difficult enough without throwing power exchange into the mix, and her books show characters who care enough about each other to fight to make the relationship work. Each book in the Safeword series highlights a couple with a different BDSM issue to resolve. Books are standalone and can be read in any order, with the exception of the two Davenport books, and the four Matte books.

Her urban fantasy series, Only Human, gives us a world where weredragons, werewolves, werelions, three different species of vampires, as well as a variety of other mythological beings exist.

Candace's paranormal romance series, The Chattanooga Supernaturals, is a sister series to the Only Human series, and gives some secondary characters their happily ever after.

You can visit Candace on the web at candaceblevins.com and feel free to friend her on Facebook at facebook.com/candacesblevins and Goodreads at goodreads.com/CandaceBlevins.